CHAPTER NINETEEN #3
“No one has ever made me feel that way before,” she whispers, and I almost snort in disbelief, but then I remember the bruises.
The scars. My gaze drifts instinctively to the marks I know trace her body, and whatever remark had been climbing its way up my throat dies before it reaches my lips.
She isn’t looking at me through the eyes of someone who’s never known cruelty. She’s looking at me despite it.
“There is only you, Little Ghost. You know that, don’t you?”
I say because no truer words have left my lips. I don’t think I’ve believed anything more. Did I know I was capable of these feelings? No. But I welcome them all the same. Because this is only temporary, and something tells me she knows it, too.
“I trust you.”
I trust you.
The words cleave straight through me. I shake my head, unable to hold her gaze for long.
“You shouldn’t,” I whisper, the confession scraping its way out of me. “God, you shouldn't.”
My fingers trace the line of her cheek, the movement at complete odds with the war tearing through my chest.
“But I do anyway.”
The certainty in her voice steals whatever argument I had left.
Such a simple thing that I know is far from fucking simple.
She’s placing her trust, her heart in the hands of a man like me and she’s doing it so willingly.
But all I feel is guilt. Instead of accepting it for what it is.
The greatest act of faith anyone has ever shown me.
I can’t stop thinking of all the ways I’m going to betray it.
She leans in, pressing her lips against mine, robbing me of my thoughts as her tongue darts out, parting them to glide against my own.
My arms wrap around her, holding her body as close to me as I can, sliding my palms downward across the skin of her spine before smoothing them over the globes of her ass cheeks.
She rises a little, leaning back slightly before reaching around to grip hold of my length.
My mouth parts, unable to hide the reaction she’s giving me as she gently brushes my tip along her wet cunt.
I wait for her, her wide eyes flicking to mine and I grip her ass, guiding her down slowly onto my cock.
The sensation of her wrapped around me sends sparks across my vision, and I’m unable to stifle the groan as she settles onto me completely.
Her thighs crush my sides as she gets used to my size, her brows drawing together, her lips parting as her hands move to rest against my chest. My adam's apple bobs at the sight of her like this, the feel of her warm skin against my own, compelling me to bend to her will.
“Don’t let me go,” she murmurs, her voice soft and breathy, nervous and unsure for the first time since this started.
“Never,” is all I say before she slowly rocks her hips, my cock buried so deep inside her that for a moment, I forget how to breathe.
Her fingernails dig into the skin of my chest as her pussy clenches around me, my teeth aching as my jaw tightens, watching as the goddess above me takes what she wants from me.
I meet her rhythm, guiding her hips back and forth as she bucks against me faster, losing herself to me as she tilts her head back, her hair falling across her perfect body in a wave of black ink.
“Raven.”
I almost growl at the sound of my name on her tongue, my eyes rolling to the back of my head as I start to buck up into her.
Her thrusts turn absolutely feral as she digs her nails so deep into my skin I swear she tears straight through it.
I don’t feel it. I don’t feel anything but the feeling she’s giving me.
I can’t focus on anything other than this sensation, watching as she rides me, chasing her release like I’m the only one who can ever meet her there.
The place made only for us.
I brace her, rolling her onto her back before diving back into her, trailing my hand up to grip her throat.
I don’t apply pressure, I simply keep it there, an act of possession I didn’t know I was capable of.
But it’s true. This woman is mine. My fingers brush absent circles against her skin, not daring to look away as she writhes beneath me, giving in to me.
Surrendering herself to the way I’m making her feel.
It would be a cruel thing to watch her die. To watch the light fade from those crystal blue eyes after she’d spent so long teaching me what it meant to truly live.
“You’re taking me so well, Little Ghost,” I murmur, our breathing growing rampant as we drift closer and closer to the edge of something I’ve never known, suspended in the space between the certainty of us.
The love that we are making from the ruins of everything that tried to keep us apart.
She’s the closest thing to holy these blood-stained hands will ever know.
And I find myself mourning the man I might have been had I met her before the world taught me to worship death. I was always meant to worship her.
I don’t know if that’s faith. I don’t know if it’s madness.
But I know that it’s true.
Her forearms wrap around my neck as though they’d always belonged there, her eyes searching my face for some sort of truth. Beyond the farthest reaches of death itself, I’d still open my arms if it meant she would find her way back to me.
If every road in this life was destined to lead somewhere, perhaps they were always meant to lead here.
Could it be that simple?
Home has always been a sacred notion for me. Growing up without one will do that to you. But to discover it was never a place at all… but a person waiting patiently for you to find them, that almost feels too brutal to believe.
Her heart beats frantically against my chest while the rest of the world burns around us.
If this is all I’m given of her, then let the flames have everything else.
Oceans could swallow the earth whole, and I’d still be here, listening to the only heartbeat that has ever truly mattered to me.
I’d still be here. Lost in this moment forevermore because I can’t stand the truth that waits beyond it.
“I’m yours, Raven. Yours to take. Yours for always.”